Lettre de remerciement d'Igor Stravinsky à la comtesse de Béarn à propos d'un double-Pleyel

Igor STRAVINSKY
Letter of thanks from Igor Stravinsky to the Countess of Béarn concerning a double-Pleyel
24 June 1923 | 12.9 x 16.8 cm| one folded leaf
A hand-written and signed letter of thanks from Igor Stravinsky to a generous patron of his ballet, Les Noces, the Countess of Béarn, who lent him a unique instrument: the famous “Pleyel double piano.” 21 lines in black ink on one leaf, with a central fold inherent with placing the letter in an envelope.
The letter is dated 24 June 1923, around ten days after the premiere of the ballet Les Noces, held on 13 June 1923 at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris. These scenes of a Russian peasant wedding that combine song, instrument and dance, mark the return to success for the composer after the Sacre du Printemps ten years earlier. He finished the final instrumentation on 6 April 1923 and organised rehearsals in Monaco in the company of Diaghilev, his faithful impresario and director of the Ballets Russes, who considered Les Noces to be Stravinsky’s most beautiful work.
In this missive, the composer warmly thanks Marie-Pol de Béhague, Countess of Béarn, who had lent the Ballets Russes a “magnificent double-Pleyel,” for the performance of Les Noces. A great patron of avant-garde theatre, the Countess of Béarn was a member of the patronage committee of the evening premiere of Les Noces. She had, in fact, been the owner of a Pleyel double piano, which took centre stage in her splendid concert room at the Hôtel de Béarn, located at 123, rue Saint-Dominique, Paris. This extraordinary instrument, also called “grand double,” “en regard” (“opposite”), “à claviers opposés” (“opposite keyboards”) or “vis-à-vis,” joins together two pianos in one with a span of nearly three metres, the two keyboards face one another and share a single table. It was invented in 1897 by Gustave Lyon, then director of the Pleyel firm, and only a few dozen examples were produced. On the list of purchasers of this unique instrument are various institutions such as the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Lido cabaret in Paris, as well as members of the high society, including, besides the Countess of Béarn, the Prince de Broglie, the Countess of Argenson, the Marquis de Gonet, and even the Sultan of Constantinople Abdülhamid Khan II.
In Les Noces, Stravinsky used two Pleyel double pianos, which were played during the first performances by Hélène Léon, Marcelle Meyer, Georges Auric and Edouard Flament. In this unusual and revolutionary work, the instrumental part of the ballet actually requires four separate piano parts: using a double piano is therefore particularly fitting not only for the gain of space that it brings, but also for the resonance and harmonic fusion between the two parts of the instrument. Stravinsky took a long time over the instrumentation, and in 1923, ended up with the final version of the ballet for soloists (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), a choir, four pianos and ten types of percussion.
Moreover, the loan of this double piano was undoubtedly the inspiration for Stravinsky’s famous Concerto pour deux pianos, for which Pleyel built another model of this instrument for the composer. Stravinsky and his son, Soulima, played this piano for the first time at the concert on 21 November 1935 at the Salle Gaveau.
A marvellous testimony of one the French exile Stravinsky’s greatest achievements, Les Noces, and of the patronage of Parisian high society during the “Roaring Twenties.”